Abu Dhabi’s Masdar, with its partners, will participate in the upcoming 3.3 gigawatts (GW) Round 4 of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP) spearheaded by the Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), a report by the UAE’s official news agency WAM said.

The report announcing Masdar’s opening of an office in the Kingdom said SPPC’s Round 4 tender will include three wind power plants with a combined capacity of 1.8 GW (Yanbu 700 MW; Al Ghat 600 MW; Waad Al Shamal 500 MW) and two solar parks totalling 1.5 GW (Al Hinakiyah 1,100 MW; Tubarjal 400 MW) to be developed using the Independent Power Producer (IPP) model.

Masdar is a consortium partner with EDF Renewables and Nesma Company in the 400-megawatt (MW) Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm, which began commercial operation starting in the fourth quarter of 2021.

The same consortium is also developing the 300MW South Jeddah Noor Solar Photovoltaic Power plant, located in Third Jeddah Industrial City. The project is scheduled to start commercial operations in 2023.

NREP’s Round 3 consisted of four solar photovoltaic (PV) IPP plants with an aggregate capacity of 1.2GW.

Round 2 targeted the development of 6 solar PV IPPs with aggregate capacity of about 1.47GW while Round 1 comprised of a solar PV IPP and wind IPP totalling 700MW.

Saudi Arabia plans to generate 50 percent of its electricity from clean sources by the decade’s end, targeting 58.7GW from renewable sources.

(Writing by D Madhura; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)